Vibro-acoustography and its medical applications

This chapter begins with a brief discussion about the general principle of vibro‐acoustography (VA), and then describes its applications. Ex vivo VA has been used to characterize and image biological tissues. VA is capable of detecting macro‐ and micro‐calcifications and delineates these calcifications with high contrast. VA is sensitive to stiffness and provides palpation‐like information that is sensitive to tissue stiffness ‐ thus it may be used to improve the diagnosis of breast cancer. VA, a low‐cost and noninvasive imaging modality, is also sensitive to mechanical properties of breast and can provide information not available in other imaging modalities. The chapter presents the results of various studies on in vivo breast VA, and demonstrates the potentials of this technology and the role it may play in the future as a breast‐imaging tool and thyroid‐imaging tool.